The present invention relates generally to an indicating apparatus for elevators and, in particular, to a modular element for indicating information to elevator passengers.
There is shown in the European patent application 92110333.9, which claims priority from the U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/736,084 owned by the assignee of the present application, an indicating element which utilizes light emitting diodes instead of incandescent bulbs for the presentation of symbols, such as for instance arrows of direction of travel. Light emitting diodes are arranged in an arrow shape on a printed circuit board mounted on a lens carrier. The diodes extend into lens housings of arrow shape into which lenses are fitted on the lens carrier. On the indicating side, the indicating element is closed by a filter plate.
A disadvantage of the above described indicating element is the complicated construction of the symbols to be presented. The lens housings in the shape of symbols or portions of symbols are attached to or molded with the lens carrier and surround the lenses which is an expensive and costly process of manufacture. Furthermore, only one symbol can be presented with this type of construction since the diodes and the lens housings are fixed in the shape of the symbol to be displayed.